50 IITians dump jobs for politics

As many as 50 engineering graduates, all alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), from various parts of the country have quit their jobs for a more lucrative career in politics. They have announced the formation of a new political party representing scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, opening a new front for ‘Dalit’ politics.

Named ‘Bahujan Azad Party’, the organisation will agitate for the rights of members of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes.

“Bahujan Azad Party”, is awaiting approval by the Election Commission.

“We are a bunch of 50 people, all from different IITs, who have quit our full-time jobs to work for the party,” Naven Kumar, a 2015 IIT-Delhi graduate, said. “We have applied to the Election Commission for an approval and are meanwhile doing ground work.”

However, he said the party does not want to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “We do not wish to do a hurried job and end up being reduced to just one of those small political outfits with big ambitions,” Kumar said. “We will begin with contesting the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections and then aim for the next Lok Sabha polls.”

“Once we have the registration, we will form small units of the party, which will start working on the ground for our target groups,” Kumar said. “We also do not wish to pitch ourselves as a rival of any political party or ideology.”

The group members, mostly belonging to the marginalised communities, have already started their campaign on social media with a poster of their party that has pictures of BR Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, and APJ Abdul Kalam.